Tree Removal

On Monday our friend Rich came over to take down a tree in our backyard. This was very exciting for us, but unbelievably exciting for Trafton. Trafton loves being outside, large trucks, people, and helping (and now we can probably add chainsaws to that list). As soon as Rich showed up and started working, the only thing that Trafton wanted was to be outside watching and 'helping.' He was ecstatic!

It was a once removed tree where 'suckers' had grown from the original stump, causing not-so-attractive, but quite large, little trees to shoot up. The tree provided nice coverage in the spring and summer from the house next to our backyard, but it was precariously growing on a little hill. It mostly just made me nervous.

Halfway down

Rich uses a rope belay system to easily and safely guide the cut branches down so they don't cause destruction in tight spaces.

Guiding down the last sucker

Polishing off the stump

Trafton was more than happy to help the guys by picking up the fallen twigs and giving them to Daddy. (Daniel was picking up the large branches and handing them to Rich in the truck.)

The finished product!

Visit from Grandmom and Grandpop O'Hare

This past weekend my parents came to visit. We had a great time hanging out and they watched Trafton for us on Saturday evening so we could go out for a bit. It was great - we went to the Turkey Hill Brewing Company for dinner and then did a little shopping afterwards. My mom and I worked on our baby announcement for the little sweetheart (affectionately being called Baby Owl) who is due in just 16 weeks. We do, of course, already have a name picked out for Baby Owl, but that shall remain a surprise . . . Trafton LOVED all the attention that he got over the weekend and I think my parents might have been worn out by the end of the weekend!

Trafton was more than delighted to have the undivided attention of Grandpop who willingly read him an endless supply of books. My parents brought Trafton several new books which he is still very excited by.

Bopping down the stairs with Grandmom

Porch relaxation

Such beautiful weather we have been having!

I really did not teach Trafton to hug trees, he just started doing it!

My mom and I were just finishing up getting some of our baby announcement ideas together - you can sort of see it on the table - lots of pink, of course!!

Family

Jason Visits!

Last Sunday Jason came to visit! It was a nice spontaneous surprise :) Trafton, of course, was unsure about him at first, but quickly began to warm up to his uncle.

I'm not sure I know you, but I'll let you hold me as long as I can see my mama.

Trafton got Uncle Jason to participate in one of his favorite games: the toy parade! After that, Trafton didn't want to stop playing with him.

Let's play with blocks now!

Now you can read me a book!

Beautiful weather :)

Cristl Update

The last time that I posted about Cristl, she was being transferred to a rehabilitation home. She only lasted for about two days in the rehab facility before developing a fever of 103.5. She was sent back to Howard County General Hospital and after four hours in the ER, her fever climbed to 104 degrees. She was eventually admitted back to the Special Care Unit (just next to the Intensive Care Unit), and it was there that she pushed past her 'persistent vegetative state' and into a 'minimally conscious state.' While fighting off an infection, she was able to begin moving her arms and gain some eye control. She also started eating small ice chips, turning her head from side to side and give actual kisses to friends and family.

This is progression well beyond where the doctors believed she would be able to get to and she's still coming back!

A few weeks ago, Cristl was admitted to Kernan Hospital in Baltimore. It is a very good brain injury rehabilitation hospital that Cristl was not originally eligible to get in to because of her low brain functioning. Because of the progress she had made, she was able to secure a spot in this facility. She is currently on the road to further recovery at Kernan.

She recently was able to swallow and can now be fed pureed food rather than be fed through a tube. She has begun to smile and say a few words. She doesn't talk often, but she has been able to recall things rather than just mimic speech. She has started to answer simple questions.

This is all immensely exciting and encouraging! Please continue your thoughts and prayers for Cristl :)

21 months!

Last Saturday Trafton turned 21 months! He is surely crazier than ever, too :) Some fun things that I have observed lately . . . He is practicing kissing on his stuffed animals. It's hilarious! When you ask Trafton for a kiss, he just comes at you with his mouth open wide and attempts to plant his open mouth on top of yours. Totally not a kiss - but it's what he's made of it. So, he practices this with his stuffed animals which causes them to get all wet with slobber - kind of gross, but so funny! He has also been giving his animals hugs and when he gives them hugs he either pats them on the back or rubs their backs. He has a puppy that when you push a body part, sometimes it asks for a hug - I think this is what has encouraged all the stuffed animal affection! He even rubbed my back the other day when he gave me a hug. Trafton is also becoming quite the dancer. We listen to music pretty much all the time in our house and sometimes when a good song comes on, we'll have a dance party. We run to the room where the computer is (the one we just got carpeted!) and all dance. Trafton is starting to expand his dance moves with his latest ones being his version of the moonwalk and twirling. It's great! He is saying more and more words and signing "more," "drink," and "finished." He is getting very independent and having more and more tantrums, too. However, we have a well-established one-minute time-out rule for bad behavior and so far it has been working wonders. Seconds after being placed in time-out, he is quietly sucking his thumb and the tantrum is over. He also likes to 'help out' with things, too. He puts things in the trash can, puts his dirty laundry in his hamper and generally tries to do things that he thinks will please us.

He now likes to play with his old musical table while squatting on top of it.

We got this table and chairs at a discount store and Trafton LOVED them, but we decided they were extremely unsafe, in more ways than one, and returned them within a week or so. We're still looking for good toddler furniture.

He loves to play the drums with Daddy.

Grandmom and Grandpop got him this construction zone set for Christmas and he has only recently taken up a great interest in it now. He carries the parts to other places in the house and wants us to set them up for him so he can play.

Story time with Pappy

Daniel was moving chairs out of our house one morning and Trafton insisted on helping.

Trafton likes to have 'toy parades' or 'truck parades' and will give one of us a toy and expect us to move about the house with it so that he can follow us. This occurs at least once a day and is definitely a favorite activity right now.

We've had a stool upstairs for a while now to help with teeth brushing, hand washing, etc. and recently Trafton has enjoyed carrying it around to look out the windows. The other day while I was in the kitchen, Trafton tried dragging one of his ride-on toys with wheels over to me to stand on so he could be next to me while I cooked. Later that day I took him out to buy another stool to keep downstairs. He loves it! He takes it all over and uses it to do all sorts of 'big boy' things. Of course, playing the drums is one of the things he enjoys very much.

So sleepy . . .

Brunch with Karen and Lou

On February 26th we went to our friends' house to have brunch. Karen and Lou recently put a beautiful new addition on their house and it was the first time we got to see it. It is spectacular! Trafton had a terrific time eating (a lot, of course) and especially playing with Lou.

Lou joins in Trafton's toy parade with the pull-frog.

Trafton is chasing Lou around the furniture as Lou crawls around trying not to let Trafton catch him.

More Lou and frog entertainment :)

Checking out the beautiful new fireplace

Lou, Trafton, Karen

Post MRI Appointment

Today we met with Dr. Sumfest again in the urology department to discuss the results of Trafton's MRI last week. He showed us the pictures from the MRI. It was actually amazing to see how clear every single organ shows up on the scan - nothing like an ultrasound. Dr. Sumfest confirmed the following: that there is, in fact, a very tiny kidney located close to the bladder (not at all where it should be located). We could see Trafton's right, appropriately enlarged, kidney in it's correct location and the left, tiny kidney was way down near the bladder. This dysplastic kidney is making small amounts of urine. This urine is then traveling through the ureter and being deposited into a cyst that is behind the bladder. This cyst is growing because none of the urine being created by the malfunctioning kidney has ever been able to escape. Dr. Sumfest proposed removing the kidney and the ureter and then aspirating the cyst. He explained that the cyst itself would be extremely difficult to remove because of it's behind the bladder location, but that by aspirating it (removing all liquid) and by removing the source of the liquid (the dysplastic kidney) it would be unlikely to reform again. He said that leaving this shell of a cyst behind should not pose any future health risks.


Dr. Sumfest said that this surgery would most likely be able to be performed laparoscopically. He explained that in laparoscopic surgery a tool is inserted into the belly button that will fill the abdomen with carbon dioxide, thereby expanding the abdomen and creating a space to work in. A camera inserted in through the belly button will show exactly where small incisions need to be made to do the procedure minimally invasively. He also explained some of the risks involved and that when they got started, they may discover that the procedure could not be completed laparoscopically. This would result in a longer operation and a much larger incision which he compared to a c-section type scar.


Upon noticing my ever-growing belly, Dr. Sumfest said that while the earliest he could get us in for the procedure would be June at best, he understood if we wanted to wait because of the arrival of our new baby. He said that this procedure would most likely last only a few hours and Trafton would be kept overnight, with a chance for early, day-of discharge as well depending on how everything goes. He said that the surgery could certainly wait another year or so if we wanted to have it done at the end of next school year. We could continue to monitor the growth of the cyst over the course of the next 16 months through ultrasounds. If the cyst got terribly large then the procedure would need to be immediate, and we could always make that choice at that time and take the days off of work. Dr. Sumfest also said that because the risks of waiting until next summer are so low, it might be beneficial because operating on a three-year-old would be slightly easier that operating on a two-year-old due to size (although he did slip in a comment about Trafton being "a big boy.") Of course. :)


So, we left the office saying that we will think about it and Dr. Sumfest just asked that we email him soon to let him know when we would like to go through with the procedure. He will be doing the operation himself, so it's nice to have a connection to him prior to it actually happening. We have a lot to consider, in addition to the financial burden of the procedure. While we have great health insurance, it will certainly not be free of charge to us.

Trafton's MRI

Today Trafton's MRI went very well. It actually went better than I expected - I didn't even cry once! We were told to report to the pre-surgery check-in area at 6:15 this morning. It was quite an early morning for us. We waited until 5:50 to wake Trafton up quickly, the we got him dressed and in the car in less than ten minutes. He was pretty cranky that he couldn't have any water (he always has some from his sippy cup as soon as he wakes up - usually while he is still in his crib even), but by the time he was in the car, he was quietly sucking his thumb.

I was surprised by how busy the check-in area was. It kind of looked like a ski lodge with all the lockers ready for patients to use. It was a huge area and already bustling at that early hour. We were given a beeper (like the ones used at Panera) and called within 15 minutes. We went with a nurse to do some paperwork and then were told to go back out to the waiting area where we would be paged again by a nurse ready to take us to the pre-surgery area. We waited only another ten minutes and were taken up in an elevator so that Trafton could be sedated.

We were given a bed area for Trafton and surrounded by three nurses, ready to get Trafton set up. Everyone was soooo nice - it was all such a pleasant experience because of that. We undressed Trafton and put on a shirt gown and pants - like little scrubs. They had a bunch of really good and new toys that Trafton was completely entertained by while everything was being prepared. He was remarkably good throughout the entire event, too! The anesthesiologist came and asked me a ton of questions and then explained how the sedating process would work. I got confused here, because Dr. Sumfest, the urologist, explained that Trafton would be mildly sedated using propophol and would be expected to breathe on his own. The anesthesiologist explained that he would be administered an oral medication, versed, to get him nice and relaxed now and once they were in the MRI area he would be placed under heavy sedation and would not be breathing on his own. She explained that due to the length of this MRI, two back to back 90 minutes examinations, the propophol wouldn't be enough to keep him sedated the entire time.

So, she gave me a squirt dropper of the 'happy medication' and Trafton took it happily. He continued to play in Daniel's arms, but his head got a little floppy and his eyes got a little unfocused at times. Then one nurse took him on his bed and us down a floor to the MRI area. By this time it was 7:40. We arrived in the waiting area and she told us we could give him a kiss goodbye and that we would see him again in about three hours or more. While were in the pre-surgery area, one of the nurses also explained to us that after the MRI, Trafton would still be sedated and we would then accompany him to the post-surgery recovery area where he would slowly wake up over the course of two to three hours.

We waited in the waiting room and sure enough, right on time, at 10:45, Trafton was wheeled out in his bed. Except he was wide awake and hardly seemed groggy at all! This was amusing because we saw many sedated patients (kids mostly) come in and out of MRIs and every one of them was still completely asleep when they were wheeled back out and up to post-surgery recover. Not Trafton, of course. We went with him up to the recovery area and stayed there while they monitored him for about an hour. He was treated like a king. Did I mention how incredibly nice every single person we met was?! How fabulous! They propped him up in his bed, surrounded him with pillows, and gave him applejuice (he drank 4 cups before they finally had to cut him off!) and graham crackers. They pulled out a TV that he could watch cartoons on, too. Every single person that walked by told him how cute he was. He was pretty happy except for each time he would look down and notice that he still had an IV in his ankle area. That made him pretty angry, but we tried to keep his mind off of it by covering it up with blankets. He also had a catheter in, but they removed that shortly after we arrived in the recovery area. Oh, and the nurses also sent him home with an adorable stuffed caterpiller. How sweet :)

We were out of the hospital and on our way home by 12:30. Trafton drank a smoothie and had a few light snacks and then we decided we would see if he wanted to take a nap. The nurses told us he would probably take a pretty good nap in the afternoon. He was still sort of wobbly when he walked around - like a little drunk man :) Very cute! He happily laid down and about 20 minutes later he was up chattering and walking around his crib and throwing the stuffed animals out and onto the floor. He was ready for the rest of the day! We got him up and we spent the rest of the day lounging and taking a walk outside. He developed a fever in the evening, but we were told that would most likely happen and that it was nothing to worry about.

In all, the whole experience was not too awful at all and Trafton did great!

Our follow appointment with the urologist is scheduled for next Tuesday morning, so we'll know how things are looking at that time.